July's Money magazine has a well researched article, The Rise of Freelance Nation, on the seismic shift in the labor force. "Companies want a workforce they can switch on and off as needed," according to a compensation expert. I was surprised--no, shocked--to learn that 30% of the U.S. job market, that's 42 million workers--is made up of independent contractors, part-time or temporaries and the self-employed. Experts predict that in the next ten years, the figures will grow to 40% of the job market. Engineering, health care, law and sales will also become part of the freelance or "contingent" workforce.
The concluding paragraph emphasizes the necessity to start networking, lunch regularly with contacts and attend industry conferences. Hmmmm. Well, yes. That's important stuff. But underlying all of that stuff and not mentioned in the article is the new demand for relationship skills. What limits job opportunities, keeps people from building a network and selling their services are relationship skills.
The biggest bugaboo for most businesspeople is relationship skills. Concern with communication is not a recent phenomenon. Our relationships depend upon it. One of the big surprises of the technology age is the high demand for people skills. We didn't anticipate it. But freelancing places an even higher demand on excellent relationship skills.
The rules for effective communication and relationship bulding are not especially new, but the need for them keeps surfacing. In a classic Harvard Business School note on communication, Renato Tagiuri emphasizes nine very important strategies and attitudes for effective relationship skills:
- Suspend judgment of right vs. wrong, especially moral and evaluative judgments.
- Assume that others' views are legitimate.
- Re-open communication. You can always go back to a conversation and "revise" it. This seems to be "news" for a lot of people.
- Define your terms. If your conversation is important, make certain you know what words mean. Remember Alice in Wonderland: "Words mean what I want them to mean."
- Deal with "facts" rather than with interpretations or inferences.
- Try to see the situation from the others' point of view.
- Take his/her, your emotions and feelings into account as important facts. If it's appropriate, recognize them.
- Restate issues as the other party sees them (feedback in the form of paraphrase).
- Throughout your communication, pay attention to and stimulate feedback in terms of the consequences of the communication. "If I do this, then . . . "
Effective relationships are built on both giving and receiving. That will require a businessperson to shift away from the natural tendency to give info, to advocate and tell. Effective relationships need both telling and asking.
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Gen-Y Competencies: Six Relational Skills
Eight Reasons Why Asking for Help Is Your Most Valuable Tool